Blinded by the light

BARNACLES are being blinded by ultraviolet rays in sunlight.

Doris Au, a marine biologist at the City University of Hong Kong in Kowloon, collected barnacle larvae in jars of water and exposed half of them to light containing typical levels of UVB radiation. The other half were exposed to light that had the UVB filtered out.

She will report in a future issue of Environmental Science and Technology that the larvae exposed to UVB were far worse at foraging and took longer to find a suitable place to settle than those not exposed. Inspection of the barnacles revealed UV-induced damage …

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